What's notable about this isn't only the level of anger but the direction from which it is coming. Not that long ago, it was the right that was angry and the left that was, at least comparatively, polite. But after years of being the targets of inflammatory rhetoric, not only from fringe groups but also from such mainstream conservative politicians as Newt Gingrich, the left has gone on the attack. And with Republicans in control of Washington, they have much more to be angry about.Actually, I have to admit that I blog for self-expression, not with any expectation of affecting anything. In fact, I strongly favor blogging for the sake of blogging and mistrust bloggers who are tapping the medium because they have a goal that they want to accomplish. I have to think that the monumental talkfest that is blogdom has got to be having some effect. But I quite love the fact that the effect is far beyond the control of the individuals who take up blogging because they want to make something specific happen.
"Powerlessness" is O'Connor's explanation. "This is born of powerlessness."
To what, effect, though? Do the hundreds of thousands of daily visitors to Daily Kos, who sign their comments with phrases such as "Anger is energy," accomplish anything other than talking among themselves? The founder of Daily Kos, Markos Moulitsas, may have a wide enough reputation at this point to consult regularly with Democrats on Capitol Hill, but what about the heart and soul of Daily Kos, the other visitors, whose presence extends no further than what they read and write on the site?
April 15, 2006
Angry Lefties, online.
WaPo has a big article on the web's lefty ranters, but it's mostly a cutesy profile of Maryscott O'Connor, of My Left Wing. Here's the most substantive passage:
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I mostly agree with Ann's reasons for blogging and I blog for serendipitous moments like this (and wonder how I got by before the internet).
I'm reading the post and "Anger is energy" gets stuck in my head. I continue reading while also thinking "I know this from somewhere." Type type type; click click click. That's it!
John Lydon (formerly Johnny Rotten) singing in PiL (Public Image Limited). Song is Rise:
I could be wrong
I could be right
I could be wrong
I could be wrong
I could be right
I could be black
I could be white
I could be right
I could be wrong
I could be white
I could be black
Your time has come
Your second skin
The cost so high
The gain so low
Walk through the valley
The written word is a lie
May the road rise with you
May the road rise with you
May the road rise with you
I could be wrong
I could be right
I could be wrong
I could be right
II could be wrong
I could be right
I could be wrong
I could be right
could be black
I could be white
I could be right
I could be wrong
I could be black
I could be white
They put a hot wire to my head
Cos of the things I did and said
They made these feelings go away
Model citizen in every way
May the road rise with you
May the road rise with you
May the road rise with you
Anger is an energy
Anger is an energy
Anger is an energy
May the road rise with you
May the road rise with you
May the road rise with you
Anger is an energy
Anger is an energy
Anger is an energy
I think self-expression is probably the reason most people blog, even if they say they want to change the world through their blog posts.
I think blogging can have a huge impact on real-life politics but I agree with Prof. Althouse that its hard to discern the exact effect and much harder to actively make a real life change through blogging (though not at all impossible). Its kind of like that butterfly flapping its wings on the other side of the world...
Chris & Sippican, I don't think its fair to say anger or politeness is exclusive to or predominantly a feature of conservatives or liberals.
First, public expression of anger at what is perceived as wrongful government action is healthy. If only more people had stood up sooner and loudly expressed their anger at Hitler or Stalin, millions of lives might have been saved or made better.
Second, fire and brimstone conservatives are famous for their use of anger to mobilize their followers. Liberals use anger, conservatives use anger. Both can be impolite and polite, depending on the circumstances.
Third, bank robbery is no more an example of liberalism than killing abortion doctors is an example of conservatism.
Do the hundreds of thousands of daily visitors to Daily Kos, who sign their comments with phrases such as "Anger is energy," accomplish anything other than talking among themselves?
Yes they do, namely alienating me from their positions and taking them less seriously. I could say the same for far-right blogs.
On the other hand I would says thoughtful blogs that are done well have the potential to sway my opinion or at least better understand an alternative position.
I blogged about this one, too. It's actually quite sad to go through life that bitter and angry.
I have no illusions that my blogging will change the world.
I'm 42, and I can't recall a time when Republicans or conservatives routinely used profanity in their castigations of their political opponents. Anger, sure. Dire predictions, sure -- the whole fire & brimstone schtick. But the swearing has not been equal opportunity.
I don't think the profile is cutesy at all. I think it's sad. I feel very bad for the poor 6-year-old. What is he learning about political discourse from his mother? Everything in that article points up the fact that all these screamers are cases of arrested development. Very few of them can make a case without using profanity. What about Bill, the guy who went to the trouble of listing 26 alphabetically ordered insulting adjectives to describe the president? I'm sure he thought he was very clever, and I bet he's thrilled to be quoted in the WaPo. In reality, he has just revealed himself to be a perpetual adolescent.
They write this stuff and feel better about themselves, but why? What have they really accomplished? "A Rant With Results"? What results, 200 replies on a profanity-filled diatribe? Does anything concrete ever come of this, say, in election results? So far: no. (To be fair, they've had success in fundraising, but that hasn't translated into a single victory at the ballot box.)
They're all candidates for therapy.
A final tiny nitpick: the punctuation here,To what, effect, though? What editor let that first comma through? It makes no sense.
Re: the "anger" of the right that's constantly referred to as the ur-source of today's general anger and the left anger in particular:
1. Who they're pointing to are the politicians and some media figures, like Limbaugh. There was no phenomenon that I'm aware of an enraged, vulgar Republican rabble. An enraged vulgar rabble is a new one, and the left can rightly claim credit for its spontaneous creation.
1a. I suppose the callers and listeners to the Limabush-style shows might qualify. I didn't listen then though; and frankly I would be surprised if the conversation rose to the dishonest and vulgar levels of the Kos world. It doesn't today, at least when I listen to Hewitt, Prager, and a few others. People can be mad. They can be astonished. They're not overwhelmingly dishonest or vulgar. (A tip: try to get people listening to Dennis Prager. If you don't find him basically reasonable, you're out there beyond reason.)
2. While there are scattered righty-type sites that can be labeled occasionally enraged and vuglar, they're also not to the perfected and constant level of Kos or Atrios. And more importantly, those kinds of sites do not define or at least dominate the conservative blog world, as they do the left.
3. When I bring this up with friends, one defense is always: well, that's the fringe, like (and I heard this just the other day) the white supremacists on the right or something. Well if so then I'm even more disturbed at the frantic courting that goes on by Democrats, what with their "diaries" at Kos and what-not.
4. The Kos-style vulgarians are the only emotional and intellectual (or whatever) muscle on the left these days.
For me, the main role of the conservative blog world has been to present and sort through the basics and details of a non-lefty view of the world, a view which in both aspects (basics and details) has long been disappearing from most institutions that define "morality" in politics: like schools, colleges, most print media.
So it's been energizing to discover and help (in a tiny way) define this alternate world view.
What I find funny about left places like Kos and their fans is that they are the new stupid/stuck status quo, just like our image of conservatives in the 1950's. I don't know what's gonna happen when that finally begins to occur to them. It may never happen, of course. They're highly resistant. By definition they are truth-seeking open-minded moralists. That's just reality.
Like you, Ann, I blog for me. It's like posting the pages from my daily journal on the corner telephone pole. Though I may prattle on about matters politics from my decidedly neo-pinko philosophy, it's just for me. If no one else reads it, I am just as happy.
Anger is not a lefties only thing, try reading RedState. People write because they care about something. For far too many people, the only emotion they can really feel is anger.
I prefer the old-fashioned philosophy, "We can disagree without being disagreeable." But, the disagreeing part can be a lot of fun.
As someone who's been personally attacked by commenters at both Eschaton and Little Green Footballs, I can say the LGF people were nastier.
Ann Coulter crosses the line at times. If you share her basic perspective, she can be very funny; and some of the things the left sees as crossing the line aren't really if you share her perspective and can appreciate the overstatement and hyperbole. But she does go too far. When she truly crosses the line is usually when she's not funny. She's weird.
Our political world is knee-deep and the water's rising in examples of commentators and politicians on the left accusing specific conservatives and conservatives in general of being evil or dishonest or stupid or fascist. The blog world is full of the vilest suggestions; and I have no doubt that it would be possible to find things famous lefties have said that at least approach Ann C's worst offenses. They wouldn't strike you that way because of course they're all based on holy truth.
Anne:
I agree with you. Blogging = self expression and it (godd and bad) gets memorialized on the blog for you.
The piece on O'Connor should have probed more on her work background and what her friends and family think of her spending (wasting) so much time ranting.
btw, I am always amused at your critics. They all seem to believe you should be some lefty lib and you have betrayed them.
Ann: Take a day and propose rational alternatives in the discussion at Kos or Atrios and see what happens.
And of course at DU disagreeing commenters are banned; last time I looked anyway that was still true.
Anyway, as I said, the presence of angry/vulgar conservative sites is granted. It's the dominance of that style on the left side - and its energizing role in left politics - that seems like the distinction to me.
geoducks-
I see your point there. I just see her as unqiue in general: an actual humorist (and again you'll have to take my word for that, because I'm sure you find her anything but funny; but if you're not allergic to here she's that rare humorist in print who can make you laugh out loud) who's also taken somewhat seriously as a commentator.
In that regard, I suppose Al Franken is similar. He does say things (like on hs show) that strike me as amazingly hateful about the prez and administration, but for the left that just seems okay because, you know, he's right.
It's also similar to Ann C. in that when he gets most strident is when he stops being funny.
Not to advertise - my blog is only a sporadic thing - but geo, you might be interested in the totally opposite takes on the life of William Sloane Coffin I linked to and quoted yesterday. It relates to the riots topic.
Not that long ago, it was the right that was angry and the left that was, at least comparatively, polite.
That must have been well before my time. I remember being called a "baby killer" on my return from serving my country. My patch of the country had the SLA, SDS, Black Panthers, and Weathermen. Altogether a polite group.
Ann Coulter-isc figures on the left?
How about: Al Franken, Randi Rhodes, Paul Begala and James Carville?
And that's just off the top of my head.
Geo: Al Franken, Michael Moore are the big ones that come to mind.
I agree Ann Coulter is extreme, I think she does more harm than good by far.
Oh yeah, Brendan's post reminded me:
Noam Chomsky!
That guy is worshipped.
I am always amused at your critics. They all seem to believe you should be some lefty lib and you have betrayed them.
I don't think any liberal commenters come to this blog under the impression that Prof. Althouse is a liberal. We all know she is at least nominally in the conservative camp and on some issues very firmly a conservative. We, or at least I, come here because she tends to be civil and interesting and curious about others' opinions on a wide range of things.
The dispute in this comment thread is over whether liberals are and always have been more angry and impolite and even murderous than conservatives (a view expressed by some commenters but not necessarily Prof. Althouse herself). That is not an ideologically conservative opinion. Its partisan. So, I don't think arguing over that here is evidence that we expect Prof. Althouse to be a raging liberal.
I obviously can't speak for the Professor, but it seems to me that she hasn't tried to create an echo chamber of commenters who agree with everything she says, and until she says as much, liberal commenters will continue to express their opinions here.
I feel I need to add a little defense of sites like RedState (which is highly censored to include only comments that agree with the posters) and DailyKos (which is not censored). Those aren't about an openminded volleying back and forth of conservative and liberal ideas. They have an agenda and they attract a certain kind of reader and commenter and they tend therefore to be more aggressive and angry. As a liberal, I like reading the main postings on DailyKos. The comments and diaries hash out liberal priorities and strategies; they don't debate whether liberal ideas are worthwhile. If you go there as a conservative looking to debate the issues, you'll be disappointed. That's not what its for. And seriously, if you go to RedState or any number of similar sites, you will find plenty of venomous angry posts and comments. Their angry rhetoric is not a liberal or conservative thing. Its an echo chamber thing.
I am nonplussed when I hear "if you stood up to Stalin and Hitler" talk referring to the people I see marching around our free country.
I'll give you some ground on that. After I wrote it I realized its weakness as an example. I should have said "If only more people had stood up sooner and loudly expressed their anger at Joe McCarthy's unethical Red Scare tactics or FDR's internment of Americans of Japanese dissent..." My point is that public anger, even in a representative democracy, serves a good purpose and sometimes we need more, not less, of it.
I will also give you some ground on the value of mass demonstrations. I personally think huge marches are a waste of time and resources that could be better spent on real education about your cause. But I think people just like to get together with people who don't like the way things are being run and say so as a group. Its easier for some people to express themselves as part of a group. I don't think marches are inherently bad though.
Honestly, as a 30-year-old political East Coast liberal, I've never heard of Katherine Ann Powers. I'll look her up, but I feel quite strongly if the facts happened as you described them in today's world, liberals and conservatives alike would denounce her. I also 100% reject your contention that she somehow represents liberalism more than the abortion doctor murderer represents conservatives.
Joe: my position is specifically not that the left side has always been more angry/irrational.
My position is that they've slud (thank you Dizzy Dean) into it gradually over the last few decades and fell into it exuberantly after 9-11 especially over the Iraq war. And that this being arguably the most dangerous time in our country's history - people disagree on that, but I'll defend it - it's a real bad time for the side I grew up thinking was the side of hope to begin acting that way.
"A question for liberals out there. Do you find that strangers make known to you their conservative political beliefs out of the blue, without any kind of prompting?"
Yes, actually I hear that frequently. I've had more than a few people, including in business settings, sound off about Hillary Clinton or some similar bogeyman without prompting. Part of it may be related to the fact that I live in Texas, but I actually live in a fairly blue part of the state (urban Houston), so that can't be the whole explanation.
One weird thing with me is that for some reason, when I lived in Boston, I had white racist cabbies share their views about blacks, Arabs, etc., with me just out of the blue. This happened to me fairly often actually, which I thought strange, since it wasn't like I walked around Boston wearing a hat with a Confederate Flag on it or something. I realize that is a different issue than the liberal / conservative thing, but I thought it worth mentioning, while we're talking about unsolicited opinions.
oooops.
Hey geoduck2: Mort Sahl is the equivalent of Ann Coulter, and was doing what she did 30-40 years prior.
Check out his website---www.mortsahl.com, on the quotes page, uh-oh....it seems that Ann Coulter may have "borrowed" (ahem) some of her schtick!
I'm blogging for love. Please love me and visit my blog:
www.maxinesplace.blogspot.com
For either liberal or conservative side:
I remember a TV interview with Bill Cosby from the early 70's in which he said (to the best of my recollection)"If you have to work blue, your brain is out of material. Any 6 year old can get a laugh from potty humor."*
The point being: if you don't have the facts or the truth on your side, just add an expletive or two to show "passion" - you're certain to convince someone that your "passion" means you're right!
* And . . . before you bring up "Genius" Richard Pryor . . .
Cosby is well known for having problems with Richard Pryor and Redd Fox, among others. At Pryor's death: “I wish that every new and young comedian would understand what Richard was about and not confuse his genius with his language usage,” comedian Bill Cosby said through a spokesman Saturday.
A question for liberals out there. Do you find that strangers make known to you their conservative political beliefs out of the blue, without any kind of prompting?
I think its always tasteless to make partisan political comments in a professional setting. I've hear plenty of inappropriate anti-Hillary and anti-Bush comments here in upstate NY. I think the WaPo article probably sums up the reason if there's more of that from liberals: despite approval ratings hovering around the level of Bush's waist size, the GOP controls every branch of government, so there is more passionate anger from liberals who feel disenfranchised than conservatives who merely feel disappointed by their leaders. The fact that Bush is so widely disapproved of may also lead people to assume that others are in the mainstream and thus make politically charged comments at inappropriate times because they don't realize its unwelcome.
JOE: I think there's only a very casual relationship between W's approval rating and the kind of stuff I've been seeing and hearing for years.
gee I'd rather have Al Franken, Michael Moore and Ann Coulter who are relatively transparent.
Far more troubling to me is someone like Bill Moyers, who sees himself (and sells himself) as an intelligent and astute observer of many things. I think he's basically dishonest and far more dangerous than angry.
Plenty of sore losermans to go around and this blog is a nice place to avoid the fray with some noticeable exceptions which we generally ignore. I very much like to read comments that take a different but well reasoned view than my own. I can at least respect that and even learn from it and sometimes change my mind. When some one calls my POV stupid, racist, right wing, homphobic, medieval, etc, the discussion is over and I'm sure the reverse is true.
Far more troubling to me is someone like Bill Moyers--
Oh, for Christ's sake.
It's official: all the idiots are here.
Please stay behind the yellow tape. Thanks in advance...
Dave calling me an idiot tells me a lot about you. No intelligent rebuttal, just name calling. What about Bill Moyers would you care to disagree with me about?
Do you have a stake in his enterprise that you care not to reveal or do you just revere him?
Don't tell me for Christ's sake Dave, you have no idea what that means. You remind me of an eight grader I once taught.
Katherine Anne Power:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n24_v45/ai_14752830
My favorite is an unrepentant Susan Rosenberg. Long after the end of the Vietnam war, she was still working on armed revolution in the US. A participant in an armed robbery (yes, they always seemed to be described as botched :), She was ultimately caught unloading nearly 800 pounds of explosives in 1984.
"Convicted leftist terrorist Susan Rosenberg must be counted among the unlikeliest candidates ever to be awarded a university teaching post. Just four years ago Rosenberg was serving out the 16th year of a 58-year sentence for the possession of more than 700 pounds of explosives and a stockpile of illicit weapons. Moreover, the onetime member of a leftist terrorist outfit called “The Family” was also a suspect in a 1981 robbery-gone-awry that left three people dead in Nyack, New York.
However, next January students at Hamilton College, a small liberal arts school in upstate New York, will know Susan Rosenberg, not as a terrorist, but as a professor. Rosenberg, whose sentence was commuted by Bill Clinton on his last day in office, will be teaching a one-month writing course at Hamilton entitled, “Resistance Memoirs: Writing, Identity, and Change.” The half-credit class draws on Rosenberg’s time in prison. According to the directors of the Kirkland Project, the campus left-wing “social justice” organization that contrived to bring Rosenberg to Hamilton, the aim of the class is to get students to examine “how the memoirist uses the writing to survive particular circumstances and to change.”
Given her continued belief in revolutionary violence, one could ask if Rosenberg has changed at all. A former student activist in the 1970s, Rosenberg’s radical ties include involvement with several terrorist groups, including the Black Liberation Army and the Weather Underground. It is through her affiliation with a Weather Underground affiliate group known as the “Family” that Rosenberg became a suspect in the October 1981 robbery of a Brink’s armored car carrying $1.6 million in which two policemen and an armed guard were murdered. Though Rosenberg has steadfastly denied any part in the robbery, she was indicted both for plotting the robbery and driving the getaway car. Contrary to the claims of many of Rosenberg’s devotees, prosecutors never retreated from those charges; they only dropped these charges in 1984 after Rosenberg had been sentenced to 58 years in federal prison for the possession of dynamite and a weapons cache. Rosenberg could not be reached for an interview.
Sanitizing Terrorism
What rankles more than a few Hamilton professors is that one would know none of the darker details of Rosenberg’s past by taking Kirkland Project’s directors at their word. In one announcement, notable more for what it did not say, the Kirkland Project touted Rosenberg as “a writer and teacher, but also an activist and AIDS educator. She was incarcerated for years as a result of her political activities with the Black Liberation Army and was released through a grant of executive clemency by President Clinton in January 2001.” While in prison, Rosenberg had indeed worked with AIDS sufferers. But the Kirkland Project was silent on the far more objectionable aspects of Rosenberg’s biography. The Kirkland Project further hailed her as “an award-winning writer, an activist, and a teacher who offers a unique perspective as a writer.” It gave not a hint of Rosenberg’s extensive terrorist rap sheet, her confessed commitment to violent revolutionary struggle, and her less-than-distinguished academic background.
This glaring omission has several Hamilton professors furious. Steve Goldberg, a professor of art history at Hamilton, takes heated issue with what he calls the Kirkland Project’s “laundering” of Rosenberg’s biography. “This is not truth in advertising,” says Goldberg. “She’s being presented as someone who was wrongly imprisoned, and who was a victim, rather than the perpetrator of terrorism. And I find that to be absolutely reprehensible.” History professor Robert Paquette agrees. “In the case of Susan Rosenberg, the Kirkland Project presented a remarkably sanitized version of a convicted terrorist.”
Apologist for “Armed Violence”
It is Susan Rosenberg’s choices, once the subject of newspaper headlines, which lie at the heart of the professors’ objection to this hiring: Far from a model of rehabilitation, many at Hamilton warn, Rosenberg is an unreconstructed extremist who has never disowned her radical faith or her belief in violent extremism.
Upon her arrest in 1984, for instance, a New York Times report quoted an unrepentant Rosenberg, who exclaimed, “We’re caught, but we’re not defeated. Long live the armed struggle!” Rosenberg’s revolutionary fervor had not appreciably mellowed by 1989, when she told an interviewer, “I don’t want you to come away thinking that I’m repudiating revolutionary struggle for the United States because I'm not. I think all kinds of resistance are necessary.”
“I think that the most extreme and difficult forms of violence stem from the system under which we live and I think it’s the system that’s responsible for a multitude of these faces of violence,” Rosenberg has maintained.
Heree's one of my favorite Moyer's from 1991 interview with Eric Alterman:
"The right gets away with blaming liberals for their efforts to help the poor, but what the right is really objecting to is the fact that the poor are primarily black," he told Alterman. "The man who sits in the White House today [George H.W. Bush] opposed the Civil Rights Act. So did Ronald Reagan. This crowd is really fighting a retroactive civil rights war to prevent the people they dislike because of their color from achieving success in American life."
I'm sorry but I don't see any relevance to the Katharine Ann Power story. So she was a leftist who went wacko and ended up killing a man. She in no way represents the left.
You don't have to look far to find armed militias and other violent predators who kill people and identify as right wing. But their existence does not undermine conservatism in general as an ideology. Extremists of all ilks can and do go off the deep end. The original post was about bloggers who write angrily from a liberal perspective. They are no more likely to become your Katharine Ann Power than right wing ranters.
This is overall a very high-quality, respectful blog that draws commenters of the same ilk. If I say so myself. However, I can't think of a troll who *hasn't* been an angry liberal. Not one. I'm not talking about voicing strong opinions, I'm talking about being inappropriate in one way or another.
To those who say this blog might draw angry liberals because Ann's conservative (!), I can't think of one thing Ann takes a conservative perspective on, other than being a bit "hawkish" on terror. Yet liberals who visit this blog and comment often state that they believe she's just posing as a liberal.
This is insulting, and just further proof that democrats are getting angrier and unwittingly alienating people they should be reaching out to. There's lots of us who would LOVE to have an alternative to vote for believe me!
[Ann, I know you don't like people speaking for you and my comments about your political leanings are based purely on my observation as a long-time reader, and I'm not trying to put words in your mouth.]
Knoxgirl: "I can't think of one thing Ann takes a conservative perspective on, other than being a bit "hawkish" on terror."
That's pretty accurate. I'm liberal on every social issue I can think of. And I've been registered as a Democrat since I first registered in 1972. I can count on one hand the Republicans I've voted for in all this time -- and have fingers left over.
I just Googled "Althouse" to get over here. (Too lazy to type in the URL.) Google apparently puts a couple of quotes from the blog under the link. The second quote on the Google page was: "I can always make a pretty butt ..."
That's really apropos of nothing, but I just wanted to point that out. Now, back to the regular programming.
Sippican's right on the money, as usual.
In choosing "social justice" as its raison d'etre, the left has repeatedly fallen into violence. The anarchists of 1900 led to union thugs in the 1930s, communists giving nuclear secrets to Russia in the 40s and 50s morphed into bank robbers and Black Panthers of the 60s, which gave way to PITA and Earthfirsters.
In the 2004 presidential election, the tires of 20 cars and vans rented by the Republican Party to carry voters to the polls were slashed by 5 Milwaukee Democratic activists (one the son of U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore).
In Minnesota, one of the SLA members had been hiding in plain sight since 1976, when a radical named Kathleen Soliah
planted a pipe bomb beneath a patrol car in an attempt to avenge the slain SLA members. (It was a 'botched' murder; she pled guilty to reduce the cahrges.) She was the darling of the Twin Cities press, at least until some of the uglier stuff came out. Still, people frequently mentioned how 'long ago' this was, so, I guess, what's the big deal.
Sippican's story about his dad is in fact the crux of the issue. Conservatives and moderates (like Ann) are able to disagree in a reasonable manner. But over and over again we see leftists want to kill people who disagree with them, or when they don't get their way. It's a big "fringe", that one.
Sippican,
"We'll get Hessians from south of the border if need be."
Brilliant!
Knoxgirl,
Someone said, "The Right looks foir converts while the Left looks for heretics"
"A question for liberals out there. Do you find that strangers make known to you their conservative political beliefs out of the blue, without any kind of prompting?"
Yes, all the time. I hear everything from quite normal, average conservative economic politics to the far extreme bigots assuming that I'm heterosexual, or seeing that I'm white, so I must agree about the [fill in the epithet here]. I have to listen to Rush when I sit in the waiting room at any number of stores and service providors. I hear it in bars. Conservatives aren't shy and retiring about their politics, in my experience.
Yeah, some leftists one time robbed some banks and blew some stuff up. Some rightists have done their own share of public mayhem and murder. It is equally absured to claim that either the typical liberal or conservative is somehow intrinsically supportive of violence as a means of politics.
I think the point that scippican, Monkeyboy, pogo and I want to make (among others) is that while both the left and the right may have their wacko's, most on the right recognize that theirs are wackos and distance themselves, while the left seems to adore their wackos.
Look at how academia treats those radical terrorist cop killers we talked about above. Excuses are made, teaching positions provided, pardons granted. What did the right say about McVey? How about, "can I pull the switch?" Rudoph? "I understand why he did what he did, but he crossed the line, lock him up and throw away the key"
I read both left and right blogs. I have campaigned and voted for democrat presidential candidates almost as many times as I have republicans, but but I won't vote for another until they (dem's) get their act together on security issues.
Reading both, I think that you see more "anger" in the left blogs. The right ones are as "passionate", but less angry and unless prone to use foul langauge. Trust me, I was a Drill SGT, I do understand the value of a good cussing out, but it's part of the job :)
knoxgirl, I think you're wrong on the troll count. I have thought of at least two commenters, neither of whom seem to be around much lately, that they could have been bots, so programmed and vile were their responses to myself and other liberal commenters.
"most on the right recognize that theirs are wackos and distance themselves, while the left seems to adore their wackos."
How'd you miss those "Run, Rudolph, Run" tshirts?
LOL,
I really did miss seeing those tee shirts. BTW, I just googled "Run, Rudolph, Run" and came up with 5 million hits, and at least the first 100 were all music lyrics of a Christmas song. No tee shirts.
Personally, I'm very pleased he was caught. Of course I happen to be one of those pro-choice republicnas tht most don't think exist.
As for the rest of us right wing reactionaries? Well, I know at least one that wanted him caught. John Ashcroft, Satan's right hand man, (J/K here folks) was very pleased that Rudoph was found. As I recall Ashcroft was very much pro-life. I guess like some of us, he just happens to be more anti-criminal.
I doubt Rudoph will get a republican pardon either. Unlike Susan Rosenberg, who killed 2 police officers and a guard, and is an unrepentant revolutionary with a passion for high explosives. She gets a pardon, and becomes a college faculty member on the strength of her correspndence MA and her revolutionary zeal.
If you're Atheist, um, you can, well, I don't know -- have fun doing your taxes.
Thanks but mine were done in February. ;)
A question for liberals out there. Do you find that strangers make known to you their conservative political beliefs out of the blue, without any kind of prompting?
Not really, I’ve usually had the opposite experience living in Minnesota where typically if someone in a class room, at a bookstore, bus stop, or a neighboring table in a restaurant spouts off about politics, it will tend to be someone on the (far) Left. From my experience this was just as true when Clinton was president as it is now.
I think the pathology of the loony left and the rabid right is remarkably similar - they're people who've turned politics into a secular religion with it's own pantheon of saints, demons, heretics and doctrines that must never be qualified, let alone questioned. They distrust of nuance and discrimination, are absolutely convinced that that someone you disagree with isn't merely wrong but EVIL, and a reliance on ever-more exreme rhetoric.
Well, I prefer Wordsworth's 'happy warrior':
--It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought:
Whose high endeavours are an inward light
That makes the path before him always bright;
Who, with a natural instinct to discern
What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
But makes his moral being his prime care;
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,
And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain;
In face of these doth exercise a power
Which is our human nature's highest dower:
Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves
Of their bad influence, and their good receives:
By objects, which might force the soul to abate
Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;
Is placable--because occasions rise
So often that demand such sacrifice;
More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure,
As tempted more; more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress;
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.
Being angry doesn't put me off - after all, there's a neverending supply of things in the world we should be infuriated by. But it's the bitter, joyless resentfulness - the cynicism and contempt - that makes me sad.
I'm liberal on every social issue I can think of. And I've been registered as a Democrat since I first registered in 1972. I can count on one hand the Republicans I've voted for in all this time -- and have fingers left over.
Wow. I've only been coming to this site for a few months, but I'm surprised by your self-description. I apologize for misrepresenting your views. The reasons I though you identified as a conservative are the conservative advertising, support for the war, the heavy predominance of conservative commenters and the fact that you seem to be sensitive and curious about people's opinions on social issues but don't come out very often clearly on one side of issues like gay rights.
Elizabeth said...
knoxgirl, I think you're wrong on the troll count. I have thought of at least two commenters, neither of whom seem to be around much lately, that they could have been bots, so programmed and vile were their responses to myself and other liberal commenters.
Uhm.... ok. Maybe there were a couple I missed.
You can't read this blog often and not notice that the ones that keep coming back and are nasty to Ann (and sometimes have to be deleted by her) are on the left.
There's an obvious reason why there's more "anger" from the left than from the right: liberals are not in power, and there's more to be angry about. I assume that if blogs had existed from 1993-2000, positions would be reversed.
Neumenon -
You're right that Prager's not leaving room for reasaonable people to disagree, there, concerning the threat; that'e because he doesn't believe reasonable people can disagree. And I agree with him on that. Being reasonable doesn't mean not having firm opinions on big questions.
Yet I guarantee you that if someone called his radio show with a plausible explanation as to why they thought differently, he would treat them with respect.
If you don't believe we face a threat to civilization from radical Islam, I'd love to hear it. Very sincerely, I would love to believe it. Before you do though, get a subscription to The New Republic and read the article "Ahmadinejad's Demons."
http://www.tnr.com/user/nregi.mhtml?i=20060424&s=kuntzel042406
Drill Sgt.: I didn't say Eric R. represents Republican ideals; he's the extreme, fringe hateful right. And even if the Freepers don't love him, people kept him fed and hidden for a good long time while the feds hunted him.
knoxgirl, I haven't missed the folks you mean, and I don't miss them when they lay low! But given your statement that all the trolls on this site have been on the left, I wish you wouldn't then dismiss my response with a "gee must have missed some."
I'm a little nonplussed about those over thirty not recognizing the name of Katherine Ann Power. True, the "botched" (I'm with you, Sip) robbery was decades ago, but it was a HUGE story when she, a fugitive, was discovered. That was in the early '90s. All kinds of militant left--and regular left--history was revisited in print and broadcast. Heck, "Law and Order" even "ripped the news" from the headlines to do a thinly veiled version.
It takes me aback that people don't know the recent history of their particular political leanings. It seems to me rather basic that whether left or right (or middle or mixed), we ought to be at least somewhat conversant about both past glories AND past excesses.
Maybe it doesn't matter and it's a small thing. Still very surprising to me.
It takes me aback that people don't know the recent history of their particular political leanings.
I suppose I should have known who Katharine Ann Power was and should be embarassed to admit I don't. Note to self: google before admiting ignorance.
But the point of me revealing my ignorance is that she is not any kind of icon of the left that lefties know and talk about when they get together. Noam Chomsky, yes. Ralph Nader, yes. Al Franken, yes. Katharine Ann Power, no.
And she certainly is not the recent political history of my political leanings. I think she is probably the kind of "leftist" that conservatives know all about and inappropriately lump her in with ordinary liberals, perhaps like Fred Phelps is the kind of right-winger liberals know all about and inappropriately lump in with ordinary conservatives.
"But I have trouble, as an observer, seeing this distinction you claim to be drawing between rage on the left and rage on the right."
That might be because I never made it.
Here's why I told my story in the first place:
"Not that long ago, it was the right that was angry and the left that was, at least comparatively, polite."
That was an astonishing assertion, in my experience. I pointed it out. That's it. Lots of excuses were made for Katherine Ann Power for instance, including the one from Newsweek I offered.
There is no excuse for killing people while trying to violently overthrow the government in a civil society. Flashmob hamstringing of the conduct of the normal legal functioning of a civil society is a sign of the deterioration of political discourse. Are those statements so very far out on a limb?
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